The "aloha" stages of email marketing (both hello and goodbye) all too often receive little attention and priority on the email marketer's task list. That's a big "hewa" (mistake), because the welcome email, whether a single message or a series of strategic messages, might be the most important email your company will ever send. Why? The welcome email is typically your subscriber's first email experience with your brand and sets the tone for the relationship. When done well, you will achieve higher levels of engagement out of the gate and minimize early disengagement and churn. However, whether it happens early or far into the email relationship, some subscribers will still want to opt out. It is critical that you not only make it easy for them to unsubscribe but also provide logical alternatives to saying goodbye. This could help you capture 25 percent or more of those looking to leave. This Webinar, designed for beginner to intermediate consumer (B2C) marketers, explains why the email "aloha" process is so important, outlines key best practices and shows numerous good and not-so-good examples of welcome emails and unsubscribe pages.

1. Aloha: Welcome Email and Unsubscribe Best Practices Twitter Hashtag #SPOPAloha

2. Speaker and Agenda Loren McDonald VP, Industry Relations Silverpop Kumu (“teacher) Welcome Emails Unsubscribe Process Q & A

3. Why Aloha? aloha (ah-low-ha): A greeting, hello or goodbye The “hello” (welcome process) is an important driver of early engagement and minimizing the “goodbye (opt-out)

4. Aloha (Hello): Welcome Emails

5. When Harry Met Sally… “We're talking dream date compared to my horror. It started out fine, she's a very nice person, and we're sitting and we're talking at this Ethiopian restaurant that she wanted to go to. And I was making jokes, you know like, "Hey I didn't know that they had food in Ethiopia? This will be a quick meal. I'll order two empty plates and we can leave." Yeah, nothing from her not even a smile.” Harry

6. Welcome emails may be the most important email your company sends.

8. Single email

9. IT Generated

10. No marketing messaging

11. HTML

12. 2-part email series

13. Marketing generated

14. Promotions, education75% increase in conversions

15. The Email Relationship Phases Within two months of opt-in, the open rate typically falls 20% to 25%. Source: MarketingSherpaa

16. Bring the Flowers

17. 'a 'ole (ah-oh-lay) - no, not, never

18. Not Much Better

19. Still, Not Much Better

21. Welcome Emails: Goals and Purpose Goals Purpose Speed up conversion Minimize list churn Strengthen brand perception Reduce inactivity Educate subscriber Reward/Incent Instill/reinforce trust Enable immediate “email experience” Provide administrative information/tools Set expectations

23. Internet Retailer 500 22% send NO emails Silverpop Study - 2009

24. Timing The Good News The Bad News 61% of retailers deliver their welcome emails within 10 minutes of sign up, with most of those delivering within 3 minutes.* 19% take more than 24 hours to deliver their welcome emails, with nearly a third of those taking more than a week to deliver.* *Email Experience Council’s second annual Retail Welcome Email Benchmark Study (2007)

26. Suppress regular emails

27. Transactional OK

28. Move to a series3-part series Immediate Immediate Email # 1 3-7 days Email # 2 Stand alone Email # 3 7-14 days

29. Sample From Names From Names: Use the same from name as regular emails Simple, logical and trusted brand From Name/Address Again, use same as regular emails Avoid ugly, number-oriented if possible Good Examples: Olive Garden [newsletter@olivegarden.com] MBNA America [MBNA@cardsatisfaction.com] Magazines.com [offers@magazines.com] Questionable Example: Penny at MarketingProfs [support@marketingprofs.com] Service@wedding.orders.com

30. Subject Lines Good/OK Not So Good Welcome to Fetchdog! Take 10% Off Your Next Order Branded Immediate value proposition Welcome to Art.com - Take 20% Off Today Branded Immediate value proposition Welcome to Sears.com Email Savings! Email program is branded Implied value proposition Welcome No branding No mention of email program No value proposition Thank you for signing up! Signing up for what? No branding

31. Design/Format

32. Image Blocking

34. Pre-header & Navigation

35. Social Sharing/Following

36. Simple Text

37. Big & Small

38. Content Blocks

39. Bullets / Buttons

41. Great use of imagery

42. Coupons

43. Star Ratings

44. Recipe Box

45. Best Practices Followed:

46. Primary message is view-able in an images off environment

47. Email comes from Betty Crocker (From Address).

49. Email address added Add to address book Privacy assurance and link Link/instructions on how to change preferences How to get started When the first email will arrive Resources, key links “Your gift” incentive Unsubscribe link Reinforce value proposition Upsell Call to action/”offer” Etc…. Sample Welcome Content Checklist

50. Incentive

51. Get Started

52. FAQ

53. Benefits

54. Payment Options

55. Personality

56. Covering the bases

57. Offline Purchase

58. Cross Sell

59. Things You Can Do

60. Welcome Series

62. product info

63. sales

65. apparel categories

66. store locations

67. request catalog

69. 24/7 shopping

70. Gift cards

72. Tafford #2 Three Reasons You Will Love Tafford + A Special Offer

73. Tafford #3 Personalize Your Tafford Experience

74. 2009 Welcome Series Indexed Results… Welcome #1 Performs 6X Better!

75. Aloha (Goodbye): Unsubscribe Process

77. Irrelevant Content/Offers

78. Also, lack of email address change functionalityJupiter Research (now Forrester)

79. Aloha (unsubscribes) are a good thing If unsubscribing is not easy, you risk:

80. Keys to Unsubscribe Process?

81. Administrative Footer - Obvious Make sure links are not just images

82. Euphemisms – lolo (crazy, stupid) Where’s the unsubscribe link?

86. Kraft Preference/Unsubscribe Center

87. Note Timing to Minimize Complaints

88. “You’ll still receive transactional emails”

89. What You’ll Miss…

90. Goodbye doesn’t have to be pupuka

93. Alternatives at Opt-out? Silverpop Study of Internet Retailer 500 - 2009

94. Channel/Communication Preferences

95. Email Frequency

96. Change Email Address

97. Multiple Lists

98. Interest Preferences

99. Why Are You Unsubscribing?

100. Kraft

101. Office Depot

103. RSS or catalog option

105. pau (pow) Finished, all done.

106. Resources Resource Center White papers Webinars Blogs Case studies Newsletters http://www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/index.html Many presentations on SlideShare www.slideshare.net/Silverpop

107. Q & A / Reminders & Contacts Loren McDonald lmcdonald@silverpop.com Twitter: @LorenMcDonald www.silverpop.com Twitter: @Silverpop Webinar Hashtag: #SPOPAloha

108. Mahaho!On Twitter: @Silverpopwww.slideshare.net/silverpopwww.silverpop.comToday’s Webinar Hashtag: #SPOPAloha